One of many issues that struck me whereas watching “Bonjour Tristesse,” written and directed by the celebrated creator Durga Chew-Bose, was a sense of being — and I don’t know the way else to place it — tenderly haunted. Perhaps it’s as a result of Chew-Bose is an outdated buddy of mine (we lived in the identical dorm our first yr of school), and the tenderness that exists between outdated mates imbues their expertise of one another’s artwork. However others have additionally picked up on the ethereal, fascinating high quality of her adaptation of the 1954 French novel of the identical identify, written by Françoise Sagan. The movie’s world is luscious, tangible and hypnotic.
This hypnotism is very conveyed by way of the movie’s costumes. Chew-Bose — whose tenure within the vogue business as managing editor of SSENSE gave her a nuanced perception into storytelling by way of garments — labored with the famend costume designer Miyako Bellizzi (“Uncut Gems,” “The History of Sound”) on the movie. The results of their collaboration is a sartorial aesthetic that feels by some means exterior of time. The costumes are, on the floor, modern: We see an Adidas sweatshirt right here, a clingy get together costume there. We all know we’re within the current second, however sure particulars pull us again in time. Kitten heels and full skirts, capri pants and tailor-made menswear, blouses with crisp collars and one-piece bathing fits really feel much less like “now” and extra like “back then.”
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
Chew-Bose and I talked over Zoom about how, and why, costumes achieve this a lot heavy lifting with regards to cinematic storytelling. The movie, which is now taking part in in theaters, has a stellar forged, together with Lily McInerny because the protagonist Cécile, her love curiosity Cyril performed by Aliocha Schneider, Chloë Sevingy as a designer named Anne, and Claes Bang as Raymond, Cécile’s father.
Eugenie Dalland: A fancy dress designer just lately instructed me that costumes are sometimes the primary place the place storytelling begins in a movie. What do you consider this concept?
Durga Chew-Bose: Miyako [Bellizzi] was exhibiting me images just lately of Paul Mescal on set for a movie she costumed — he’s standing in a forest carrying a interval costume. She was like, “the only way you know what century this takes place in is because of my work.” She’s dispatching data by way of each costume alternative she makes, each element. Principally, everybody’s job on set is to present data to the picture, and the costume design, for lots of people, is the place it begins. I assumed that that was an attention-grabbing approach to consider costume — as not simply decor, however as a missive that tells you who, what, when, the place, how.
ED: Let’s speak concerning the opening pictures of “Bonjour Tristesse.” We see a close-up of the nape of a younger man’s neck as he’s pulling off his T-shirt; he’s carrying a silver chain. Subsequent, a close-up of a younger girl lounging on a seashore in a yellow one-piece bathing swimsuit. What data had been you dispatching with these pictures?
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
DCB: I at all times needed the opening shot to be of a younger man taking his T-shirt off. That actual body is so iconic for many individuals’s recollections of summer season. Instantly, we expect: youth, summer season, seashore. I’d written within the script that the digital camera could be very near his physique, not essentially for the aim of the feminine gaze, although clearly the shot is from Cécile’s perspective. I needed to determine what was the element that felt just like the quintessential man’s element. I requested Aliocha, “How do you take off your T-shirt?” As a result of most ladies I do know take off their T-shirts like this [Chew-Bose crosses her arms, miming taking off a shirt], and males go over their shoulder, like within the shot. I’ve at all times discovered that by some means enticing, the distinction between how some males and the ladies take their T-shirts off, these pure inclinations.
ED: That’s a really delicate, poetic element about one thing that folks may dismiss as mundane.
DCB: We really shot that scene of him taking off his T-shirt greater than another scene within the movie! Both the sky was too blue, or not blue sufficient. For no matter motive, taking off a T-shirt grew to become a complete factor. [Laughter.]
ED: One other delicate element about that shot of his neck is the silver chain he’s carrying — it gently helped place the scene in modern instances, within the now. As a result of the T-shirt and one-piece are basic and will have been from nearly any decade — Nineteen Seventies, the Forties.
DCB: It undoubtedly does make it modern.
ED: That sense of being within the now but in addition a bit not got here by way of in some ways. The script options plenty of traces which have a sure dignity about them that really feel of an older time; one thing concerning the rating additionally feels nearer to how music was featured in films. And there’s that incredible nod to Hitchcock’s 1958 movie “Vertigo” in Chloë [Sevigny]’s coiffure! However for me, that timelessness was particularly conveyed with the costumes. Numerous full skirts, one-pieces, blouses with crisp collars, Lily’s black Repetto flats, after which an Adidas sweatshirt! Which, just like the chain, redirects us again to the current. Was this sense of timelessness intentional?
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
DCB: I believe it was the alchemy of a number of issues. It wasn’t essentially one thing that Miyako and I explicitly agreed on. It was her studying of the script, and, as you famous, the form of mannered approach that the characters spoke. I really like that you just referred to as it “dignity.” It’s additionally price noting that this movie is an adaptation of a e book from the Fifties, and layered over that’s the first adaptation of the movie by Otto Preminger, which got here out shortly after the e book. All of that created an orbit of concepts of timelessness. I at all times mentioned to everybody concerned within the movie, “I don’t want this to just be the contemporary version of ‘Bonjour Tristesse.’” After I take into consideration methods to create that high quality you talked about, being out of step with time, the way you create a world that makes the viewers really feel like they’re escaping from or forgetting the now, costume is an effective way to do this.
ED: What’s an instance?
DCB: Chloë’s character Anne is a designer, however I needed to determine her at a sure level in her profession. I felt like, what would Cécile bear in mind of her from that summer season? The reply was a lady whose collars are actually crisp.
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
Stills from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Giacomo Bernasconi)
ED: I really like the concept of the crispness of a lady’s shirt collar being a part of the storytelling. There’s a scene with a fragile lace coverlet on a mattress that I’m pondering of, the place Cécile’s dad, performed by Claes Bang, and Chloë are making a mattress collectively. The coverlet felt prefer it was a part of the storytelling too: They’re creating one thing home collectively, one thing lovely, however that’s finally fragile as nicely. Was that the message in that scene?
DCB: I believe my manufacturing staff was deciphering what I wrote within the script and felt like that was the proper materials for that change between Anne and Raymond. It’s a scene the place a person and a lady who share a really intense previous are making a mattress collectively, so describing that textile as “domestic” is true. It’s humorous you convey up that coverlet, as a result of the Balenciaga costume Chloë wore to our Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant premiere was really impressed by that scene.
ED: That’s wonderful.
DCB: Chloë is at all times fascinated about character, and he or she needs the alternatives that she makes in her personal life to be a part of a story. Narrative constructing is how she approaches performing, which I discovered a lot from. I really like artists who’re at all times fascinated about the extent of their artistry of their precise life.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
ED: Artwork imitates life however life additionally imitates artwork! One thing about that coverlet should have felt necessary to her about her character.
DCB: We did plenty of what I’ll name material casting. The props staff would present me varied desk settings for sure scenes; I’d speak with my cinematographer about it. A few of these selections had been really purely technical — sure yellows simply gained’t look good on a terrace within the South of France at 3 p.m. Perhaps these are boring particulars, however they had been an schooling for me. You may’t simply pursue aesthetic ideas.
ED: That’s a extremely necessary level. A lot storytelling is conveyed in what is likely to be thought of an earthly, technical element, but that element finally ends up creating a huge impact.
DCB: Precisely. On the finish of the movie, Lily is carrying a purple wool costume. It was in a light-weight shade of purple, however on the eleventh hour after we had been taking pictures, Miyako was like, “No, it’s not the right shade of red!” So she went out and located a wool dye.
ED: I really like that! I learn just lately that the costume designer for the movie “Conclave” hated the shade of purple that cardinals put on at present, that on display it seemed actually cheesy. So she dyed the entire cardinals’ costumes for the movie a darker shade of purple impressed by Renaissance portraits of cardinals. Such as you mentioned, big-picture aesthetic ideas dictate the costume design, however on the finish of the day it additionally comes right down to technical particulars that require a extremely refined, skilled eye to understand.
DCB: Completely. Miyako actually has that eye. I believe she’s additionally a world-builder. The anecdote about “Conclave” is attention-grabbing as a result of clearly the costume designer wasn’t simply wedded to reality and realism, however as an alternative to world-building. Like inside this story of what’s taking place on this film, the purple wasn’t essentially going to replicate actuality. The best way that characters speak within the script I wrote, we weren’t actually in search of realism or making an attempt to imitate the now in a approach that folks would reply to with relatability. That wasn’t going to be what drew them in. I needed what drew them in to be one thing else, one thing that was achieved by way of world-building. Creating one thing that might really feel like folks knew the place they had been, however had been additionally a bit uncertain.
ED: That sounds such as you’re describing what it’s wish to be inside a dream.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thais Despont)
DCB: I really like that. Early on, there was a dialog about methods to seize Cécile’s interiority with out utilizing [voice-over] narration within the movie, which is what the Preminger adaptation does. One of many marvels of the e book is its first-person narration, and we questioned, “How do you do that on screen?” My hope is that the expertise of watching it makes you ask, “Did this really happen, or is this how Cécile remembers it?” The best way I needed to replicate Cécile’s interiority was of these detailed moments that you just decide to reminiscence that change the way you understand womanhood, or love, or intimacy.
ED: Do you imply that the movie represents Cécile’s reminiscence?
DCB: It wasn’t some high-concept thought, I simply suppose that usually in case you’re making a film that has to do with a younger girl, in the summertime, you’re instantly launched into reminiscence greater than you might be into actuality.
ED: I need to return to Chloë’s Balenciaga costume that was impressed by the coverlet. Perhaps that is foolish, however have you ever began dressing like every of the characters within the movie?
DCB: No, that’s so attention-grabbing! I’ve undoubtedly amassed extra classic T-shirts since taking pictures “Bonjour,” however I additionally really feel like there’s a top quality to Cécile’s costume design that jogs my memory of myself at a youthful age, like a barely sporty edge to it.
ED: Sporty edge was completely your type in faculty.
Behind-the-scenes from “Bonjour Tristesse” by Durga Chew-Bose
(Thaïs Despont)
DCB: That point on set, everybody sort of grew to become their characters. Lily actually nonetheless wears black Repetto flats, the identical that she wears in lots of scenes in “Bonjour.” It’s form of like there’s a picture which you can’t unsee. There’s no query, you sort of change with these types of massive initiatives, and no matter that change is, I believe for some folks, it is likely to be the best way that they costume.
Eugenie Dalland is a author and editor based mostly in upstate New York. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Evaluation of Books and the Brooklyn Rail. She co-founded and printed the humanities and tradition journal Riot of Fragrance from 2011 to 2019.
